Inside the Sixers: Looked like Sixers checked out vs. Bucks

On Wednesday night, the 76ers lost when they should have won.

This has happened before, but in previous games you sensed it was on-court miscommunications and overall confusion that caused those losses - not genuine inattentiveness to the task in front of them.

But in Milwaukee on Wednesday, watching these Sixers - both on the court and on the bench - was like watching a hollow version of a once-tenacious team.

As this season has progressed, the Sixers have gone from struggling to frustrating to nearly impossible to watch.

But in this game, the Sixers looked checked out: They called an imaginary time-out on the bench, walked away from team huddles, looked into the stands during an offensive possession on the court's far end, and exchanged knowing glances from court to bench. That's unusual, even among dispassionate NBA players.

When the night ended, the Sixers had lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, who entered the game with 18 wins, were on the second night of a back-to-back and are without star guard Michael Redd for the rest of the season.

You might ask how a team with such a talented roster lost this game, but if you were there, you'd have assumed this would be a loss all along.

After the game, Sixers coach Eddie Jordan said his team played with energy; he might have meant he coached with energy. Jordan stalked the sideline, impassioned, demanding results he was never given.

At one point, he was borderline furious, yet never seemed able to hold any one player accountable, just swallowing the anger.

This is an 82-game NBA season. Moments of frustration and inattentiveness are to be expected. But this was different.

Midway through the fourth quarter, the Bucks built a 10-point lead, each bucket distancing the Sixers from victory. During that run, on the end of the team's bench, far from Jordan's position, one player leaned into another and gestured for a time-out. This took no in-depth psychology to decipher: They felt Jordan was making a mistake in allowing the lead to grow.

Near game's end, point guard Lou Williams, freshly pulled from the game, sat with his head in his hands, away from Jordan who was diagramming a play. Williams only joined the huddle when called by assistant coach Randy Ayers. After the game, Williams said it was frustration borne of a desire to play - that's it, just to play.

It's not remarkable, in the NBA, to see attention wander either during a time-out or during a game. The Jumbotron usually plays something interesting, and on-court festivities during time-outs are designed to draw attention. But watching a player stare in the opposite direction of the on-court action, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankle, is a different vibe entirely.

It says: I'm frustrated and I need to show it.

On Wednesday night, the players appeared to have their own way of communicating, of dealing with this season's struggles. The looks exchanged from an on-court player to those on the bench - after a foul call, while walking to the free-throw line, while waiting to inbound the ball - was a language of its own. But the translation didn't seem to be, "Let's win this game, no matter what." It seemed more like, "Let's get through this, however we can."